The Boss (The Boss 1)

I mean, really, I thought to myself as I donned the tight jeans and snug, long-sleeved, v-neck t-shirt I’d packed intending to look casually hot for Neil. Now, I worried about how much cleavage it showed.

A lot. The answer was a lot of cleavage.

If you’d caught your mom with some guy your age, you would react the same way. He wouldn’t even have to be my age. I’d run off a pretty impressive string of chronologically appropriate men when I’d been a teenager and my mom had dipped her toes back into the dating pool. Maybe if Emma and I had met through work or friends, we would have had no problem with each other. But once you threw in that whole pesky part about me fucking her dad? I really couldn’t hold it against her if she didn’t want to become instant BFFs.

I dragged a brush through my hair and pulled it back in a low ponytail. Neil came in just as I was about to brave the kitchen again.

“Sue left a quiche in the refrigerator, it’s heating up now. We can eat it while my vegan daughter judges us accordingly.” He went straight to the closet. When he emerged, he was wearing sweatpants and a cheap blue t-shirt from a half marathon.

This was, with the exception of nakedness, just about the most casual I’d ever seen him. And it was bizarrely hot.

He picked up speaking as though he’d never stopped. “This is all my fault, because if I had mentioned it to Sue, she would have made something else for breakfast, but I forgot what day my only child would be returning from London. Let me reiterate: I forgot that my daughter would be zooming across the North Atlantic in a flying metal death trap.” He sat on the sofa, thumb and fingers spread across his eyes to massage his temples.

“So...” I sat beside him and rubbed his back absently. “So, the talking didn’t go great then?”

“Not at all.” He stretched his face down with his hands. “And I have to go back in there.”

“Oh my god.” I coughed a disbelieving laugh. “You want me here for this because you’re afraid.”

“I— um.” he stammered. “Yes, I suppose I am. It’s going to be insufferably awkward. And I don’t want to go through it alone.”

“Don’t you think it’s only going to be worse if I stay?” I asked, getting to my feet.

“Perhaps, but...” he sighed. “I like being with you. I don’t want to cut our time together short. And your presence generally improves my life, so if I’m going to endure the most uncomfortable father-daughter breakfast ever, I might as well do it with you beside me for moral support.”

“Fair enough. I helped make the problem.” I leaned down and kissed his deliciously rough cheek. I felt a momentary twinge of disappointment that we wouldn’t be putting that stubble to better use today, after all.

Back in the kitchen, Emma was sitting at the breakfast nook, staring intently down at her phone.

Neil cleared his throat, and when she looked up, lifting one eyebrow in an eerie impersonation of her father, he said patiently, “Emma, I didn’t have a chance to introduce you before. This is my girlfriend Sophie. Sophie, this is my daughter, Emma.”

Excuse me, girlfriend? What? Now was definitely not the time for that conversation, though. I really didn’t want to have to explain to this stranger that I was involved in a no-strings, friends-with-benefits relationship with her father. Oh, no worries, we’re just having hot, meaningless sex is all. Doesn’t that sound so much better, Emma?

“Nice to meet you, Sophie,” Emma said, but she didn’t try to shake my hand. “I didn’t know my father had a girlfriend. So soon after his divorce.”

Neither did I. I slid onto the seat opposite her, and scooted down the bench to make room for Neil. Emma looked immediately back at her phone, and Neil was busy taking the quiche out of the microwave, so I distracted myself by examining the framed photos on the wall above the breakfast nook. There was a much younger Neil, holding a smiling, pink-cheeked toddler in his arms at what appeared to be a polo match. In another, the same girl, older, with pigtails in her hair, stood proudly in front of a sign that read “Llewellyn Academy”. In the next one, Emma at age six or seven held a springer spaniel puppy in her lap.

“That was Merry,” Neil explained, and when I looked to him, his eyes were on the photo. He slid the quiche onto a trivet in the center of the table then turned to get some plates. “I bought her for Emma for Christmas one year. You should have seen the look on her face when she came downstairs and there was a real puppy, sleeping in its bed right in front of the Christmas tree.”